2023-05-20:Why Do They Call It That?
- Log: 2023-05-15 Why Do They Call It That?
- Cast: Lan Lilac, Loren Voss
- Where: Sylvaland City
- Date: May 19, 2023
- Summary: Lan tries to teach Loren about the surfacer custom called the Slumber Party. Loren tries to get Lan to just go to sleep already. Takes place immediately after Napping On a Park Bench.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
Lan was just going to set up a campsite closer to the edge of town. It's free and simple and she's done it a thousand times by now! (Literally. Maybe even closer to two thousand.) And then she found Loren napping on a park bench, which sounded like a really great idea because she'd been traveling for more than twenty-four hours straight at that point. So she sat down too.
And promptly fell asleep on him. And maybe drooled on his sleeve (only a little bit).
Somehow that led to him leading her by the hand to an inn, insisting that he'd pay for a room.
The room is really nice, now that they're in it! The blankets look sooooo soft, and the sheets are probably all clean and smell nice and everything!!
It reminds her a little of how they used to travel together. It's nostalgic. "You're gonna stay for a while, right?" she double-checks. She'd never quite gotten an answer out of him when she asked if he'd hang out with her a little longer. And Lan is pretty sure that if he doesn't, she'll fall asleep early and wake up at three in the morning and she really doesn't like that idea. (If she weren't operating at Mach Exhausted and were able to think more clearly, she'd probably realize that that's really not such a big deal.)
The room may not be huge but it's cozy, and there's even an ensuite bath with a tub and everything. She's already imagining how great it will feel to scrub the travel dirt off of herself. Lan dumps her bag at the foot of the bed and trudges to the sink to wash her face. "Just a little while?"
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
Loren's due back to base for a shuttle to Etrenank in a few days, the precursor to a trip home he's very much not invested in. If it weren't for the fact that his parents were the ones asking...
Fate had intervened, though, and probably just as well in the long run that it did. At least Lan can look after Runeberry (the... bear) for him while he's away, a conundrum he had been musing over in the days leading up to his trip back anyway. Yet, then another problem had shown itself, which is to say:
Lan Lilac was seriously going to attempt to make camp somewhere around Sylvaland while she was falling over from exhaustion as it was. He wasn't about to put up with this nonsense, and so
...That's the reason he's now in an inn room with her, alone, while the lady at the front desk had looked at the both of them and made assumptions.
At least, that's what he's assuming, given the looks she was giving them both.
His intention had been to leave her off (she'd been just about leaning on him by the time they'd gotten in and paid and head up to the room) and go about his business, but...
Now she's asking him to stay.
He looks everywhere but at her. "Shouldn't you get to sleep? You're half-dead on your feet," he points out.
...He's still got days of travel back to base ahead of him, and a longer stint at home. He's going to be on his own for a while. Even if he'll do just about anything but admit this simple fact, staying here a little longer isn't...
...such a terrible idea...
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
Perhaps mercifully, Lan hadn't really noticed any looks they may or may not have been given and was thus unable to make it super awkward by informing the innkeeper that they're friends and not lovers. Because she would, mostly for Loren's imagined benefit.
"I can't sleep yet," she explains, soaking a washcloth in sink and wringing it out. "I'll wake up rested in the middle of the night and it'll be all weird and lonely. And I still have stuff I need to do, anyway." Lan scrubs her face until she feels like some of the grime from traveling is gone. "Gotta do... uh..."
She has stuff she does in the evenings! "Making lace," she remembers, "And I should check my stuff for wear and tear. And eat dinner. And take a bath." Because they have water here!! Hot water! She can wash her hair and soak. It's so luxurious...!
"...Hey, Loren," Lan leans out of the bathroom suddenly, washcloth still poised to scrub behind her ear. "Have you ever been to a slumber party?"
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
And he would have immediately expired on the spot, had Lan done that, which would have been a problem for them at least insofar as getting her up to her room would have gone.
But fortunately, they managed to pass the challenge of the front desk of the inn without too much trouble and/or embarrassment, Loren's suspicions of what the lady up front might have herself been suspecting aside.
Lan tells him why she can't just go to sleep now. "Huh," is his remark at her explanation. "Makes sense."
He sits down on one of the two beds in the room -- this one's smaller than most he's been in. Sometimes they put people up several to a room at once which was a weird experience the first time. Normally, he would have had that sort of experience earlier -- it's the case to bunk up at most surface Gebler bases for the rank and file and junior officers but not even once has it been his experience. ...Admittedly, that was because the people he'd been assigned to bunk up with in Bledavik had gone and requested a transfer to one of the other barracks, leaving him on his own, but no, he's not still bitter about that. Who's asking?
Besides, he was happy now that he had the rank of Captain and as a minor perk, had a room of his own on base, wherever that happened to be at current time.
Lan says something from the bathroom, and, lost in his own thoughts, he doesn't immediately parse it. "Huh?"
...Slumber party? He wrinkles his brow, clearly deep in thought. "Uh, no. What's... a slumber party?"
Unseen by him, Runeberry scrabbles its way up onto the bed and slumps over behind him. Does it know in its own way that he's leaving it behind soon?
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
All the reasons Lan gave for not wanting to go to sleep are true and reasonable! They're also not the entire story. If she goes to sleep now, she'll also miss out on getting to spend time with a friend. Lan may also be used to loneliness, and she may even (if asked) say she doesn't mind it, but she isn't the sort of person who can convince herself.
"A slumber party!" He hasn't heard of them! Lan remembers, a little too late, that Loren's teenage years weren't the same as most. Shoot. She doesn't want to remind him of bad times. "Gwen and I have them sometimes. You stay up late and eat snacks and things. Uh..." She switches ears, thinking.
"You can do each other's hair and talk about boys. ...I don't usually do the last one but we can if you want? Or girls. Or..." Lan trails off, looking at nothing in particular as the gears chug along. "Or whatever."
Hanging the washcloth to dry, she leaves the bathroom and takes her shoes off, setting them to one side of her bag before kneeling to dig out a change of clothes. No not her pajamas, she's trying not to fall asleep. She comes up with a cotton dress (the one that had been wrapped around his sword, back at the train station) and some socks.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
He pauses for a long, long moment as Lan explains. He's actually quiet, at least initially, as she explains what a slumber party is. --Some sort of surface-dweller custom, he surmises from the description she gives (at least, given that she usually has one with Gwen, who is also, well, a surface-dweller).
So you stay up and apparently don't sleep. "Weird name for it," he remarks.
There's snacks (which are fine, by his assessment), and then doing one's hair (for... some reason?) and talking about boys--
"Uh," he starts and stops, not really sure where to start about that.
Or girls, Lan adds, helpfully, and that really doesn't help at all.
Or whatever.
The cloth of that dress is familiar. He doesn't place it.
She said she doesn't do the part where they talk about boys. "...So you don't talk about girls or whatever, either?" he says, because that's still on his mind. "Uh," he quickly follows that up with, looking away. "...Never mind."
He's silent for a long stretch (or so it seems, to him)
"So what... do you talk about?" It's not like Loren can do her hair (hahaha no), or she can do his (there's not a lot he does with his hair except to wet it down when it sticks up, or use a comb as needed). And hahaha there's no reality where he really wants to talk about his romantic interests with her, such as they are.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
"I think so too! But I guess Stay Up Gossiping and Snacking Party is a mouthful. Do you need the bathroom before I hog it?" she asks, digging around in her bag for her comb and toothbrush and toothpaste.
That tub is right there. She's tired of being all dusty and smelly! They can talk through the door, it'll be fine.
But he wonders, a little, before abruptly remembering something or thinking better of speaking, or something. Lan laughs a little. "I mean. I talk about friends! And I gossip plenty. But I guess I don't talk about romantic stuff... you know that about me." He didn't judge her for it, even if that's the one kind of weird that she's still a little unsure about being.
"I talk about books I've read, or wherever I went lately, or if I found anything cool. What kinds of flowers I saw. If I got any messages from home."
She takes her stuff into the bathroom and turns on the hot water. It just comes out of the tap like that! It had been a miracle on base and it's a miracle now. "We can talk about whatever. Or we can just hang out. I don't think there are rules. What do you want to talk about? How to take care of the b-- of Runeberry?"
She leans out the door while the tub fills, pulling the comb through her hair.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
"Uh, no," he answers with a shake of his head. "I'm fine." There's nothing he needs it for, presently. "Do they have a shower?"
They have a bathtub.
"Right. Yeah." His answer is simple enough, even as he frowns faintly and nods. Some people... don't. It made sense to him, even if he hadn't really heard of -- or considered it -- before. After all, he likes men and woman, and people who aren't really either. It follows that there'd be people who don't really like anyone like that in this world.
Even if, the more he teases it out, the more he thinks how difficult that would be in Etrenank. There, you're expected to marry -- if you're First Class. Maybe also if you're Second. Certainly if you're Third. You're expected to eventually procreate.
But you only need to do that once. Maybe, after that once, someone could...
What does he want to talk about? He had zoned out again, catching snippets of what she had been telling him about what she talks about. "Um. I don't," Loren starts, fumbling for a topic. She'd said something about books. Flowers? "I don't really have anything that I'd--"
The bear. Runeberry.
"--Yeah," he says, firmly at attention again. "It's, right. You know what it likes. Do you still have that stone? And water. It likes water."
Loren pauses a moment, watching her comb her hair. "I guess it... uses it to make its clouds? But don't let it wander too much. It's good at getting into things, or getting itself lost if you let it..." He's had to retrieve it from the vents more than once. It probably wants to explore more but it's not safe. ...Maybe it would be better if Lan kept it, he thinks, and not for the first time.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
Lan has a lot of hair. Thakfully, it's straight and not prone to tangling, or she'd be standing there all evening. Ugh, even her arms feel tired. Is the wooden comb supposed to feel like it weighs a whole pound??
It's not like she was saying anything profound, so Loren apparently didn't miss much. "What does it do when you're working? Can you just leave it in your room and," she yawns in the middle of putting the comb down, "huah, just trust it to be okay for a little while?"
There are a few inches of water in the tub, so Lan shuts the door before stripping and climbing in. The sigh that gets pushed from her body is almost a whole sentence of its own, echoing through the gap beneath the bathroom door. "Aaaaaaaaaaaah~ It's so waaaaaarm." It's enough to make her aching feet not that big a deal, and she could absolutely live here in the tub for the rest of her natural life, thanks.
Lan scrubs herself down while they talk, letting the smell of soap envelope her. "The stone Eleanor gave us? Yeah, it should be in my bag. ...Should you take it with you? So the bear doesn't eat it."
The water continues to rise slowly. Bending forward in the tub to cup handfuls of water and pour them over her head, she considers how she's going to keep the cloudbear out of trouble. What if it wanders away while she sleeps?
Splash, splash...
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
"Stays put," he answers, shifting on the bed as he tries to get a look at where it is, behind him. "Mostly, anyway. Sometimes it wanders off. ...That's why I'm leaving it with you. If it wandered off in Etrenank..." He grimaces, reaching behind himself for the bear's soft and only semi-there form. "I don't know if everyone back home even knows what a bear is. Someone would panic, and then I'd get the blame," he continues, shuffling himself over then and flopping back atop the bed. It puts him at a good angle to pat the bear, gently. It responds by attempting to bite his fingers.
Honestly, that's probably even the good outcome. The bad one would be the bear disappearing, never to be seen or heard from again.
He's pretty sure Leah knows about. He's pretty sure Leah's the reason why nothing has happened on base, even if he's sure sweat about it plenty.
Loren in this moment isn't really paying attention at all to what Lan might be doing behind the bathroom door one way or another.
Until she lets out a sigh like that, anyway.
It makes him feel extremely... uncomfortable. Uncomfortable is certainly one emotion he's feeling right now!
"Y-yeah. I don't think it can, uh, eat the whole thing. It's probably fine," he says, staring at the ceiling overhead as if it held the secret of the universe. All this, and his neck is still killing him...
Flat on his back on the bed over here, he's probably not too easy to hear when she's in the bath with the door closed, though.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
"If it wandered off there, it'd be terrible," is the long and short of it. It takes some doing to lather up her hair, and a few more handfuls of water, but just thinking about how good it's going to feel to be washed and dry and in clean clothes makes it worthwhile. Meanwhile, she tries to think about other things a bear could need - particularly one made of clouds. Water, mana (not Mana), attention...
"Does it like to play?" she asks, swiping soap out of her eyes. "You know, uh... I guess bears probably don't go fetch," she sighs, and shuts the tap off with a foot. Squeak-squeak. Her voice is a little clearer without the gentle sound of running water, but anything Loren says will still have to get under the door and past the sound of splashing, plus deal with funky bathroom accoustics.
Hair still all soaped up and bubbly, Lan relaxes against the rim of the bathtub, not even bothering to stifle a yawn as she draws her knees up. If the bed were this warm, maybe she'd be less obstinate about just going to sleep early! Her voice is approaching languid. "Mmm. Uuuugh, this is the best. You should take a bath when I'm done. Is your neck any better?"
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
"Play?"
He turns his head towards Runeberry, who is still trying to catch his fingers. "Dunno," he says, moving his hand away from it in an almost teasing fashion, trying to get it to chase after his fingers. He's seen cats do something like this. "Maybe slipping out is how it plays."
It won't hurt if it catches his hand. Its teeth aren't really there. A portion of its body at any given time isn't really there -- there's enough of it present to be, well, present, but it is of the air in the end. He's just glad it's not insubstantial enough to walk through walls.
"Guess you could find out," Loren continues, grimacing as Lan splashes about. Does he really have to be here for this...?
"Don't fall asleep in there," he cautions, picking himself up off the bed as she audibly yawns. This, of course, pulls something in his beck; gritting his teeth, he raises his hand to his neck and winces. "I don't really do baths," he says rubbing at his neck to little avail.
"...Kinda."
He's silent for a moment more.
"It'll sort itself out when I sleep." Probably.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
What's he going to do, leave her alone? Is Loren truly so callous?? (Does he actually believe she wouldn't nap in the tub?)
"Kinda like hide and seek. Maybe that's it," she muses, tapping her mouth with a fingertip. Pwip pwip pwip. "'I'm bored, time to go make Dad play with me'?" She mulls it over.
He cautions her not to fall asleep in there and Lan bites back a yawn. ...Maybe he's got a point...
"It's way easier to wash my hair in a shower," she has to admit, "but soaking is just the best." It soothes aches and pains! And it just feels nice.
But eventually she's got rinse the soap out of her hair. Lan cracks an eye open, groaning quietly, and sits up.
She's quiet for a long time. ...Is that the sound of air bubbling up from beneath the water??
In the bathtub, Lan has settled onto her knees, head and hair submerged, kneading the soap out of her hair. She's gently, slowly breathing out, because getting water up her nose really sucks.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
"Maybe," he says, turning his head (gingerly, now) to frown at Runeberry. Runeberry looks at him much as it usually does.
Animals are black boxes to him, frankly. At least a person can tell you what they're feeling. It's hard to tell if anything's going on under the hood with an animal. Though he assumes there must be. There probably is?
"It seems unsanitary, sitting around in a bath," Loren remarks, still rubbing at his neck as if this will set it all right. There is some sound from within the bathroom, and then...
Silence.
Silence, and the soft sound of bubbles rising to the surface.
Loren rises to his feet and with the speed of a medic, strides towards the door. His hand settles on the doorknob for a fraction of a second before some strain of propriety overtakes him and he... knocks.
It wouldn't be the first time he would have seen her naked, yes, but there's a difference -- a whole world of difference, thank you -- between her being half-naked and unconscious (he had been conducting emergency medical treatment, calm yourselves) and her being completely in the nude and... probably conscious?
Assuming he's wrong that she's just passed out and is currently drowning in the tub, that is.
He'll give her exactly two seconds to respond, though, and then he's coming in. Drowning is no laughing matter!!
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
Under the water's surface, Lan has her eyes squeezed shut while she scrubs at her scalp. It's a pain to take care of sometimes, but she really loves her long hair. It's her best feature, even moreso than her rockin' thighs (a compliment delivered by a tipsy woman in a bar a year or so ago, and one that had strangely kind of delighted her. Lan trains hard so her thighs ARE rockin', thanks for noticing!). So she takes care of her hair, never cutting it, keeping it clean.
hlblblblblblbl, goes the water.
((knock knock knock knock)), goes the door, echoed weirdly through the bathwater. She sits up, startled, spitting water out of her mouth. "Pft- huh? Are you okay?" Her knees protest being jammed against porcelain for this long. "I'm almost done." Geez, he must really have to pee or something. She said he could use the bathroom before she did!!
With a wistful sigh, Lan pulls herself out of the tub's warm embrace and emerges a few minutes later, wearing the clean dress and her hair wrapped in a towel.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
Long hair -- at least as long as hers -- must be a pain to take care of. This, Loren has already intuited. Not that he'd know first hand -- the longest his has ever gotten was the first time he'd gotten stuck on Lunar, when he'd let it grow out a bit. It hadn't even gotten long enough to do anything with, honestly, let alone become a burden.
Still, he hasn't realized how long it can take to properly wash one's hair.
Already, the hummingbird winged tremolo has begun in his chest. If she's slipped under, if she's drowning, if, if--
But a startled and very much awake and alive Lan answers him clearly. Is he okay?
"Am I okay?!" he spits back in response, taking a step back from the door. "Speak for yourself! You went silent and all I heard was..." Palming his face, he exhales a long sigh. "Forget it. Just... don't fall asleep in there. Please."
He's not much happier when she does finally emerge. He sits on the edge of the bed with his arms folded over his chest. Somewhere distantly to his left, the bear squirms on its back on the bedspread.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
To be fair, it would go much faster if Lan's hair was short like his, or Gwen's. This is a thing that is one hundred percent Lan's fault.
The dress isn't one he's seen her in much. It's fairly shapeless, with short sleeves, and ends at the knee. Maybe it goes underneath something else, or maybe it's just a weird nightgown. But it looks comfortable, and soft. Lan looks comfortable, and soft.
Well, save for her expression. That's just somewhere between 'chagrin' and 'puzzlement'.
"Oh. You thought..." She should have said something first. If he said something and didn't get a response, then-- well. He's already saved her life once in the last few months. Maybe it made him twitchier. "I'm sorry," Lan says sincerely, standing there in her socked feet at the foot of his bed. "I didn't mean to scare you."
Lan moves over to her own bed and sits down facing him, quietly taking her hair down out of the towel to start combing it out. She's so tired. But there's always something that has to be done, so she can do it. "Do you want to take a bath? I know you don't think it's very sanitary. But it's really really nice. And you aren't tired enough to fall asleep in the tub, right? So that makes you the safest person to take a bath now!"
Yeah, she's tired. Lan may not usually make much more sense than this, but that was some kind of inspired.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
She's correct about that -- he's felt 'twitchy', overprotectively so, ever since she'd almost died those months ago. It hasn't been helped by the knowledge that their respective sides on this matter guarantee it will happen again: as long as she takes up arms against Solaris, someone on his side will try to kill her.
And there's nothing he can do to prevent it. That is, after his assessment of the situation, the conclusion he's come to. He can stall the inevitable for a while, but that's it. Eventually...
Lan isn't the only one wearing a complex expression. His might be primarily his usual grouchiness, but there's something else there -- something pensive, even a little bit sad. She'd asked him to come with her, once, but he can't do that. He--
He shakes his head when she apologizes, some of his initial grievance melting away like snow. "...Forget about it," he essentially repeats, arms still folded over his chest. "So what now? With this... sleepover business." He has the feeling she's going to end up doing a lot more sleeping than usually happens during these events.
Lan suggests he take a bath, too. His arms fall away and he looks somewhat... scandalized? "Right after you?" he asks, as if she'd asked him to do something far more risque. Is that even clean?? Sure, the water isn't going to be the same, but, still--
But it's nice, she says. And he's not going to fall asleep in the tub (he gives her a withering look, here). He might have still balked. Except...
He hasn't exactly had the opportunity to wash has he? Not in about a day or so, now that he thinks about it. This always happens. Whenever he travels away from like this, he loses track of time. Surreptitiously (he thinks), he gives himself a sniff. ...Not terrible, but it's not going to get better. Rather the opposite.
"There really isn't a shower, huh..." he says, gazing up at the ceiling. Immediately he regrets this, pulling a face as he lifts a hand to his neck.
"...Fine," Loren says at last, rising to his feet and heading towards the bathroom door. He hates giving in like this, but it might be the last chance for running water until he gets back to base...!
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
Maybe he's in one of his moods again. Maybe he's got something heavy on his mind. "What's wrong with taking your turn right after me? You'll feel better." No matter what's eating at him, Lan can't imagine a bath making it much worse. The comb passes through her hair, Lan starting (as always) with the last six inches or so and carefully working her way up.
Her mother used to do this for her, Lan recalls for no particular reason. 'Think good thoughts,' Mana had told her. 'Think of happiness when you do your hair. My mother used to sing to me when she combed my hair, but you know I can't carry a tune in a brass bucket. So you'll have to settle for me talking, Lan.'
Why did she think of that now? Did anybody ever teach Loren to think nice things while he took care of himself? ...Lan cannot imagine that happening in any reality, which is sad.
She comes back out of the memory just in time to catch him checking for smells. "You're fine," she tries to reassure him. "I mean, I leaned on you and everything. You just smell like a Loren." Though if Lan had to describe that, she couldn't.
He gives up on arguing soon enough (sooner than she expected) and goes into the bathroom. Lan considers things for a moment, moving over to his bed to pet the bear for a few moments. She wants to sink onto the mattress and curl up and NO, she is NOT sleeping yet--! Comb forgotten in her hand, she looks around.
Aha. Leaving the bear to its own devices, she posts up just outside the bathroom door, back resting against the wall. It's too uncomfortable to fall asleep, and they can keep talking! She's a genius.
"So in slumber parties you stay up late and talk about boys," she tells him, because Lan has already forgotten that she's already told him that. "And eat snacks. And sometimes me and Gwen share the bed and sometimes we tell ghost stories. Gwen's really good at that. ...I don't think I can stay awake long enough for ghost stories today," she laments.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
It's not that there was no one. But it's also true that there wasn't someone who took care of him like Lan's mother did. When he was too young, Mirza had brushed his hair. When he'd hit puberty, Gil had shown him how to shave -- not that he's had reason to do that, even into his early 20s. Other than that, though... Lan's thoughts there may be spot-on.
"Nothing, it's just..." Weird, he finishes silently. Like sitting in someone else's spot, in a way. Logically he knows they're hardly the first people to stay in this room -- to use that tub. Hasn't he used the same showers that countless Solarian soldiers have? But there's something about a bathtub that feels oddly more...
Also, she's noticed him checking for his smell, reassuring him that he just smells like him. "That's what I'm trying to prevent," he grumbles as he rises to his feet. After all, that's exactly the problem after a while -- a guy starts to smell too much like himself. And that's all well and good (in a loose definition of the phrase!) if there's no alternative, but...
The last thing he wants to have spreading back on base is a rumor that Voss, literally, stinks.
It's weird, he decides, after he closes the door and starts the water running and begins to undress. He pauses halfway, stripped down to his pants and squints at his reflection in the mirror. It's weird that he's still here.
But it's also weird how exposed he feels. The door is closed. She can't peek on him -- not that she would! -- any more than he could have in reverse (not that he would!). There's a door between them and he still feels unsettled.
He shuts off the water after a few moments more, finishes undressing, and climbs in.
...It's really warm. Save for the telltale sound of sloshing water as he shifts in the tub, though, he makes not a sound.
That is, until she, close to the door now, starts talking. He sits up that much straighter, as if the sound of her voice had startled him, only to then relax -- oh, he knows what she's doing.
"I know. You said that already," he replies, sinking into the water as he turns his head towards the ceiling. "But you're not interested in boys, and we don't have snacks. You should sleep," he continues, reiterating the sentiment from before. ...Damn, she was right. This is relaxing.
"..."
Lan has mentioned ghost stories. Gwen tells good ones...? There's something to never, ever let Gwen start off on.
"...Then, talk about something else," he says, silently breathing a prayer of thanks to the Emperor. "What about, um... are you too tired to talk about..." Shit, he needs to think of something before she talks about ghost stories anyway. --No, not anatomy! Not when she's half-stupid from exhaustion and he's hanging out in a bathtub!
"How's... how's your Solarian these days?" ...Nailed it.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
In the end, it's cultural. In Little Firelight, he and Leah and Lan had all squeezed into the loft where Lan and Hicalu had slept as children. Most everything is communal, out of necessity before preference. They say tall fences make good neighbors, but when you can't spare the wood for a single post...
Lan hadn't even locked the door when she bathed. Why would he open it without reason?
"I've always got snacks," she counters. She has snacks, right? "Apples and jerky this time. ...But that's mostly what I've eaten for a few days so I want to eat something else. Bread and butter and tea. Soup and cheese." She's rambling just to ramble now, but the thought of it's cheering her up.
She should sleep, he reiterates. Lan wants to. She looks out the window. Surely it's basically dark already, right? She's been awake so long that it hurts, and now that she's settled onto the floor her body's going to let her know it.
Why is she so stubborn? Is it just because she doesn't want to wake up at a bad time? No, she'd wanted to... the thought dances just outside of her reach.
"I'll sleep when you... I think I..." She trails off, shifting against the wall. But he asks something unexpected, though she can't articulate why it's so strange.
"<How's is your neck?"> she asks, after a moment of trawling for the right words. And she's still pretty sure there's a double something in there.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
It had been one of the stranger nights of his life -- sure, he had come in at that point expecting something of the sort, but it was still odd to think that they really did live like that, in less space than his entire bedroom back in Etrenank. Leah, of course, hadn't so much as blinked. She must have already been used to it, by then.
In spite of the chill of the desert night, it had been warm in the loft.
"Jerky... huh," he muses aloud. "The stuff you have isn't too bad." Even now, he's prone to thinking with his stomach. "That does sound pretty good, though." Damn, now he's getting hungry thinking about it, though even if he went out and picked up something somewhere he could bring back, he suspects she'd be asleep on the bed by the time he got back. Which might not be too bad for him in the scheme of things (he definitely could go for a soft cheese with bread or something like that, now), but...
It would be pretty lonely.
"Let's get something like that tomorrow." Tomorrow, before they part ways again. If they're lucky, they'll meet again. So far, they've been lucky. ...Lucky. It's weird to think like that, Loren thinks, stirring at last from his semi-languid soak and reaching for the soap. Yeah, he should do the washing thing. ...But it's true, about luck.
He, fumbling for something to talk about, asks how her Solarian's been. She replies--
"You used 'your' twice," he says, sighing, the sound of the water betraying his movements. He sits up a little straighter and clears his throat. "<It's better. Nothing a sleep won't fix. ...The bath was a good idea.>"
And if she can parse out what he'd admitted to there, well... then she deserves to know it. Pinching his nose, he abruptly sinks under the water, as much to escape any reply she might have as to wash his hair.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
If nothing else, it would ensure that Loren got his pick of the bread slices!
And honestly, Lan doesn't feel like going out with him to buy anything tonight. It was hard enough getting her up the stairs the first time. "Okaaaaay," she acquiesces, stifling a yawn with her hand.
She should... she should check her gear. She should do something. But the longer she sits here, clean and mostly dry and exhausted, the less Lan wants to do anything. Not eat, not work, not even get up and find a more comfortable place to sit. Those are all problems for Future Lan.
"<We'll tomorrow get food,>" she recites slowly. It had been easier once, hadn't it? She could speak with the others on base with relative ease. She still had to think about translating what she wanted to say (and then translating what she heard) but... it had seemed faster. But then, she hasn't lived on a base in years.
Loren notices it too. "<Good! I tell-- told you so.>"
And if she's waiting for an answer she doesn't get it, but it hasn't occurred to her yet to be alarmed, mostly because Loren is smart and won't drown in the bathtub. Her back spasms and Lan fiiiiinally gets up, stiff, half stumbling towards the bed. She'll just sit down on the edge. She'll just rest.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
She's got her sentence twisted up in the middle, he thinks, but this time can't quite bring himself to correct her. It's not her first language, she hasn't spoken it in a while, she's tired...
It wouldn't have been all that long ago that he'd have corrected her again without even thinking about it. He's changed, he reflects, gazing at the ceiling in the bathroom. Without even realizing it, he's changed quite a bit, huh...
He's sunk under the surface, mercifully, before he can catch her near-perfect 'told you so'. It doesn't take Loren as long to wash his hair, to arise again with a gasp, but then, his hair is much shorter than her own.
He lingers in the water, just a little longer. Maybe the other times it hadn't been warm enough. Or maybe, he'd been fixated on getting in and washed and out. And sure, he's doing that now. But...
He hauls himself out once he can feel the warmth starting to fade and tends to the business of toweling off, of dressing.
When he exits the bathroom, he's dressed in what he's come to favor when traveling: a more or less matching loose shirt and pants of an undyed fabric of some sort. Cotton? Hemp? He had bought them without thinking too much about it (he probably had overpaid, thinking back) and didn't really care to ask them and would have forgotten by now.
But they're still reasonably comfortable and they look like something just anyone else would wear, down here. He takes one last look at himself in the mirror and steps out into the bedroom, his hair still damp.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
The surface, its people, have changed him. Maybe more than Solaris has changed Lan.
She's moved away from the door by the time he emerges from the bathroom, settled onto the side of her bed... and Lan isn't sure when she became horizontal, laid out on her side on the mattress. Huh. Did she mean for that to happen?
She must have. Her head's resting on the pillow. Her hair's even more-or-less all off to one side!
Her head hurts. Her body hurts. But it hurts less now that she's lying down. which must be what Loren was talking about when he kept telling her to go to sleep already. He looks nice and clean. Lan smiles at him.
"You look a million bucks better," she tells him, raising a fist for the world's least timely thumbs up. "But uh. Uh." Lan sighs, and grapples with the edge of the blanket, pulling it up and over her legs until she's a poorly-wrapped burrito. "I think we can do hair tomorrow too. With food."
She told him she has apples and jerky, right? In her backpack? He knows that, right??
But her eyes just don't want to stay open anymore, and it's soft and getting warmer here in bed, and Lan is safe and warm here like she would be at Hicalu's place or with Gwen, and she's nodding off before she can even check about whether or not Loren is going to have anything to eat tonight.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
He's not all that surprised to find that she's collapsed onto her bed. Quietly, he approaches his own, perhaps seeking not to disturb her. However... Lan isn't entirely asleep yet.
She gives him a thumbs-up. He looks... better?
"I didn't look bad before," he grouses, settling down on the edge of his own bed with a 'glink' of the springs. Well... not worse than usual, that is. He didn't even do anything except wash. He hasn't even combed his hair!
"What do you mean, do hair? ...Oh, right, the 'sleepover' thing." He sighs, swinging his legs up onto the bed and leaning back gingerly, taking care to not drop onto the bear. It squabbles a little at him, anyway. He reaches over to rub at Runeberry's back (where his fingers don't stick through it).
It, of course, tries to bite his arm.
"Just go to sleep," he tells Lan, though she might already be there. Even when she's like this, she's so sure of the next step.
...One of these days, Loren thinks, gazing up at another ceiling. One of these days, he'll figure out where he's supposed to be, what he's supposed to be doing. Every time he thinks he's got it figured out, he...
Covering his face with his hand, he sighs out a long breath. He's thinking too much about it again, about everything. Maybe it's time he takes a page out of Lan's book and just go to sleep--
Or maybe it'd be his own, after all, if he's the one who'd been telling her to do that in the first place...! Grimacing, he closes his eyes and rolls over onto his side. Ugh. It's catching.